What is the worst lie you have ever told?

The truth hurts… Lance Armstrong has come clean about his drug use (Picture: Reuters)

Michael Bay is a brilliant film director. The Big Bang Theory is a very funny sitcom. I like Razorlight.

The three statements above all have one thing in common. They are absolute lies.

Perhaps they are not as humungous as fibbing your way to seven Tour de France wins, but like disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, we all enjoy a bit of truth-dodging.

If you have ever uttered phrases such as, ‘Oh, you really look nice in that dress,’ and ‘Yes, I would love to go see the new Gerard Butler movie’, then you are a liar.

We can’t help it. Lies can sometimes make our lives easier. But they can also get us into trouble.

‘I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times,’ said Armstrong last week when telling US chat show host Oprah Winfrey about the drug regime which made him a constant wearer of the yellow jersey.

The cycling world’s anger at Armstrong illustrates how much lies can hurt. Lies are an important currency in football too – just ask any manager who’s received his chairman’s backing one week only to be unceremoniously dumped the next.

Earlier this week, current Chelsea boss Rafael Benitez lost his cool when reacting to claims by former former Italian player Marco Materazzi that the manager took down pictures of Jose Mourinho when he succeeded him at Inter Milan.

‘Marco Materazzi is lying. He’s lying. He’s a liar,’ said Benitez. Being called a liar is the ultimate insult, something that calls someone’s entire character into question.

Protecting children from the harsh realities around them – while also throwing in a few characters such as the Tooth Fairy to smooth things over – is a noble goal, but wouldn’t it be better to just blurt out the truth?

‘Children don’t need to be taught to lie – they start to lie at a relatively early age,’ said body language expert Mark Bowden from TruthPlane.com.

‘It’s not a learned behaviour – it’s a programmed behaviour to be deceitful.’

It is understandable that some parents feel the need to lie.

‘Younger children live in a world of imagination, bedtime stories, Father Christmas and tooth fairies and that’s lovely,’ explained voice and presentation coach Caroline Goyder from GravitasMethod.com.

‘Imagination is part of childhood and you don’t want to force them into adulthood until they’re ready. With kids, you cover up negative emotions to protect them and of course that’s healthy.’

It emerged this week that Cornwall council has turned to lie detector tests to check if people claiming benefits are telling the truth. It plans to use voice risk analysis (VRA) software when talking to claimants on the phone.

Critics of lie detectors say they can be easily hoodwinked, yet so can we.

‘We’re very unskilled at detecting lies,’ said Mr Bowden.

‘If we were skilled at detecting lies, we wouldn’t trust anybody. We need to be able to trust each other because we need to group together in order to survive.

‘We’re either lying because it’s going to benefit us or it’s going to benefit the group we belong to.

‘We’ll lie because it will bring us more resource of some sort. It wouldn’t exist if it didn’t have benefits. We’re all very skilled at it because we’re doing it continually.’

Just as one person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure, he said one person’s lie can be another person’s truth. But how do we uncover the truth when someone is lying?

‘Unconsciously, we usually pick up when someone is constructing something they say they are remembering,’ said Ms Goyder. ‘Because they are acting it, we pick up on the extra effort and stress.

‘People see through fakery. If you aren’t convinced by your own story, at heart, we pick up on it too.’

So why do we lie?

‘We all tell ourselves stories,’ she said. ‘There are lots of different versions of the truth sometimes and that’s how lies can start. Lying’s a shortcut to protecting yourself and avoiding conflict – you don’t have to get embroiled in a fight, you don’t have to get into detail.

‘But people usually find out one way or another, so I think that honesty is the best policy. You can be honest – and respectful.

‘Sometimes it’s better not to say anything or to reframe it. Rather than saying that dress looks awful, you can say I really prefer the other one, it looks better on you. It’s the same information, but you’ve framed it differently.

‘The main thing is to balance keeping the other person’s feelings in mind, while aiming to say what you think as honestly as you can. It’s a very fine line and none of us get it right all the time.’

When you’re in the public eye as Armstrong is, the truth can easily become an alien concept.

‘Celebrity involves creating a mythology which must make it hard to stay grounded in any kind of reality,’ said Ms Goyder. ‘Celebrities create characters and the people around them build up the myth, so truth, honesty and the real person get lost along the way.’

It’s best, then, to play it straight.

She said: ‘Big lies are, in general, bad and any sane adult knows to avoid them as you will always get caught out in the end, especially in the digital age.’

WHAT IS THE WORST LIE YOU HAVE EVER TOLD?

Tell us in the comments below or tweet us@MetroUKusing the hashtag#MetroLies